Saturday, 22 December 2012

Santa Baby...Bring Me Coal

I
want a coal plant for Christmas, and not because I’m a naughty girl. I
want lots of coal so I can power up the high-tech toys Santa is
bringing me, including an electronic robot maid that cooks and cleans, a
32-meter-wide TV and a modern, coal-fired steam locomotive that allows
me to bypass the TSA Grope Squad when I travel cross-country.
OK,
so Santa probably won’t be sending a full-size, coal-fired train down
my chimney. But, like many of you, I may be getting small electronics
of Christmas (or Hanukkah). As millions of us ring in the New Year by
adding new gadgets to the power grid, we need to make sure we have
ample electricity to fire up our cutting-edge iPads, TVs, sound systems
and smartphones. Americans get almost half of their electricity from
coal. I think coal is a wonderful source of energy and we need to
continue producing it.
This month, the EPA is expected to
announce a set of new smog regulations that will clamp down on power
companies. “Not so fast,” cautions the North American Electric
Reliability Corporation (NAERC)—a panel of volunteer industry experts
that the government designates to ensure and improve reliability in the
electric power grid.

Katie says that President Obama maintains that Americans can wean themselves from coal and oil. Environmental activists are "fighting hard for new regulations that will quickly force the coal industry out of business."

New
rules from the EPA that require coal plants to dramatically reduce
emissions are causing job losses, coal plants shutting down and the loss
of billions of dollars.

NAERC warns
that the EPA’s strict regulations will cause up to 600 large power
plants across the country to shut down for months while they adopt the
new rules and will force numerous older plants to shut down indefinitely
because they won’t be able to afford compliance. The result will be
power blackouts across the country plus additional power grid
instability in drought-prone areas like Texas due to new EPA cooling
water rules.

So, the
government’s own designated industry experts are warning us that the
EPA’s smog rules will have big costs: Soaring energy prices, frequent
blackouts and job loss. And the EPA can hardly cite the “public health
dangers” of greenhouse gases with a straight face when internal
government probes
reveal that the EPA has altered, withheld and distorted its scientific
findings in order to sell the notion that greenhouse gas emissions
harm humans.

The EPA has no alternate plan for the replacement of coal. Like here in Australia the technology has got cleaner over the years.

The
wealthier a country becomes, the cleaner it becomes. This month, the
Global Carbon Project released a study showing that developing
countries like India and China account for the majority (57 percent) of
global greenhouse emissions.

Only
rich economies can afford to develop the latest clean technology.
Before we can afford the costs associated with developing the
supposedly cleaner technology behind solar and wind, we need to revive
our rapidly deteriorating economy. And by “revive,” I mean continue
developing fuels like coal that will prevent power blackouts, create
jobs and lower the cost of energy. Minimal smog is a small price to pay
for a safe and reliable power grid and a healthy, growing economy

Santa baby, there's one thing I really do need, the deed, to a coal mine, Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

Katie Kieffer is a conservative multimedia personality, writer and public speaker who runs KatieKieffer.com.